We were outside playing, when Little Guy started doing some of this:
Me: "Whatcha doin?"
Little Guy: I'm trying to fly, but I just *pant* can't *grunt* do it!
He was completely serious. My first impulse was to tell him, "people can't fly silly," but I didn't. Won't the world have enough naysayers? Why should his mother be one too? How wonderful it must have been when we were young and believed we could fly.
There's just something about the stillness of the country. Even though there is life all around, everything seems so peaceful and still. It's lovely.
The property belongs to my grandparents, but not the cows. Their cows are a few years gone. I think it's wonderful that the property can still be a home to these beautiful girls (and boy). We have grown such a fondness for them. They are starting to equate us with food. Everytime we come to visit, we start pulling handfulls of grass and weeds for them to eat and feed them by hand. It's a pretty amazing experience. We have begun to develop a system of spreading out and getting the big girls in one area while one of us feeds the little ones. Otherwise, the big girls get pushy and the babies can't enjoy any long, fresh greenery.
There are no video games or computers or playground equipment; and Little Guy thrives. I mean, thrives. He is never bored when we stay, though he would love to spend every moment outside. We even ate our breakfast on the front porch swing. We could really get used to this kind of lifestyle.
We've been on such a journey these past few months. We're lucky that hubby's job is the type he can take anywhere. Deciding exactly where has been such an issue, but we've finally started narrowing down our search. We've gone from the hustle and bustle of the city, to being over an hour from a "real" shopping mall. It's been quite a learning experience about ourselves and what we want as a family. While we still aren't sure of anything (are you ever really?), I can say this: We're getting much closer.
This week we had fun getting familiar with the letter J and it's sound. We did some J-related workbook activities and had fun with jellybeans!
We did a jellybean transfer activity using these awesome chopsticks we got for Little Guy back when we went to EPCOT last fall.
In his typical fashion, Little Guy started out using the grip I'm trying to get him away from, despite my suggestion to use, what we call, his pinchers. He likes to make sure he's doing things by his own decision, not my request, so I didn't say anything else about it. Since this grip is much stronger, everytime he'd try to pick up a jellybean this way it would pop right out of the chopsticks.
Eventually, he decided for himself it would work better if he used his pinchers.
Sticking with our jellybean theme, we did a graphing activity. I poured out a handful of jellybeans and made a graph for Little Guy to color in. I also made a question page so we could answer questions about our graph.
Little Guy counted how many of each color jellybeans there were and colored it in on the graph. (After we figured out how far up Little Guy should color, I drew a line at the top of that box so he wouldn't go past it. That seemed to really help.)
Then we answered questions about the graph and Little Guy got to eat some jellybeans!
We played Candyland about a million times this week. Little Guy is kind of in love with it lately.
I also made up a Jumping for Jellybeans game that Little Guy loved! I wrote a bunch of words (with an emphasis on words beginning with the letter J) on cut up index cards. Little Guy started at one end of the rug and everytime I called out a word beginning with J, he could take one jump forward. If the word didn't begin with J he had to stay still. If he accidentally jumped on a non-J word, then 2 jumps backward. Everytime he reached the end, he got a jellybean. He LOVED playing this game!
This week we read:
My J Book by Jane Belk Moncure
(great intro to letter J and it's sound)
Jamberry by Bruce Degen
(Little Guy liked it, especially since we've been tasting all sorts of different jams and jellies lately)
Jumping Day by Barbara Juster Ebenson
The World that Jack Built by Ruth Brown
(I really liked this one)
"Spring is here! Spring is here! It's the best time of the year!" That's what Little Guy and I have been singing for the past week when we're playing outside. There is just so much beauty out there! Everyday we find something new to take in. The trees are changing almost daily. It's been really fun to watch Little Guy as he notices the changes.
He found a letter V!
Little Guy picked this flower for me.
We've also learned that as Spring approaches, we must be sure to watch not only for flowers and butterflies, but also for other creatures who we may not be as happy to run across.
Dr. Seuss's birthday is the day before Little Guy's; and since this year The Lorax comes out on birthday weekend, I thought it would be really fun to devote a whole week to Dr. Suess books.
We read "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" and did this really fun Goldfish game I found at obSEUSSED.com. We rolled the die and whatever number it landed on is how many Goldfish crackers we added to the corresponding numbered fishbowl.
I suppose you can guess who won? Little Guy. Every. Time.
The, we read "The Foot Book" and Little Guy did this foot matching game I made.
I just drew some feet on index cards, colored them in, and cut them in half different ways for Little Guy to match up.
We also read "The Lorax" which, darn it, got me a little choked up and led into a discussion on our planet, and why it is so important that we treat it with kindness. We discussed how the Onceler was interested in making money, but in doing so was hurting everything around him. We talked about how it's nice to be able to make money, but money is not the most important thing. Living things are much more important because they are all connected. And that brought us to how they are all connected. What I was really amazed by, was that Little Guy was genuinely interested. He was full of questions and I gladly answered them and asked him what he thought until he grew tired of the subject. Then, we moved on to our Lorax activities.
Luckily for us, 2 Teaching Mommies made a Lorax themed preschool pack, so I printed out a couple of the activities for Little Guy. He did the "Which is Different?" and the "Tree Size Sort."
I also made this Truffula Tree activity which is great for developing those fine motor skills.
I just colored an Oatmeal container, glued on a Lorax image that I printed from the computer, and poked holes in the lid. Then I stretched out and colored cotton balls, glued them to pipe cleaners that I had cut in half, and voila! A Truffula Tree activity!
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